Casual Restos: Bishop & Bagg

Sarah Musgrave, Special to the Gazette05.10.2014

A salad made with endives, spinach, radishes, pickled beets, hazelnuts, mustard vinaigrette, croutons and cheddar is served with bread and Murphy’s beer at Bishop & Bagg Pub. It is a new pub that joins British Invasion happening in Mile End in Montreal.Marie-France Coallier
/ The Gazette

The Bramble cocktail is the name of this cocktail served at Bishop & Bagg Pub in Montreal. It is made with local gin Piger Henricus, right, fresh lime juice and raspberry liqueur.Marie-France Coallier
/ The Gazette

Hanger steak is served with crispy potatoes, chickpeas and aioli at Bishop & Bagg Pub.Marie-France Coallier
/ The Gazette

Employee Julia Cronin is working at the dark wood bar at the new Bishop & Bagg Pub in Montreal on April 23, 2014.Marie-France Coallier
/ The Gazette

Bartender Sean-Michael McCaffrey prepares a drink at Bishop & Bagg Pub in Mile End. The cocktails are classics, including a Pimm’s Cup and Pisco Sour, that are just waiting for summer.Marie-France Coallier
/ The Gazette

MONTREAL - As I walked up the Main toward my evening assignation at Bishop & Bagg, the trend was very much in evidence. First, I passed Pub Sir Joseph, where shortly after its opening in the fall, I’d sampled such chips off the old block as bangers and mash on a stick and sticky toffee pudding. A few blocks further north was the two-floor Cardinal Tea Room, complete with scones and bone china cups, recently launched upstairs from neo-traditional pub and brunch spot Sparrow. Across the street, at Lawrence, a U.K.-trained chef continues to offer his clever nose-to-tail cuisine, no stranger to dollops of clotted cream and Eton mess on the dessert menu. Finally, turning west onto St-Viateur, brought me — tallyho! — to a pub that opened in February complete with instructions on how to order ye olde pint at the bar as you would in a small-town snug. Mile End is most definitely in the midst of a British invasion.

For as long as I can remember, this was the locale of dodgy Italian cafés (their real purpose may not have been food, but I swear I had a great Parmigiano sandwich here once). Done over in dark woods, and graced with a roomy terrasse, the corner spot is looking a lot warmer and cosier in the hands of the team behind St-Henri’s popular Burgundy Lion and Brit & Chips shops. Bishop & Bagg doesn’t push the Britannia theme quite as hard as those other establishments, which is to me a bit of a relief. In fact, it takes its name from two random 19th-century figures: local landowner Stanley Clark Bagg and Bishop of Montreal, Ignace Bourget. Still, it’s trying to bring an essentially English experience to the area, with directions for customers on how one would behave in an authentic British pub: when it’s your “shout” to “get a round in,” note your table number and order at the bar. (You can start a tab, always a nice way to feel like you belong.)

The draft lines pump out Murphy’s Irish stout, Carlsberg and St. Ambroise IPA, among others. The cocktails are classics, including a Pimm’s Cup, Pisco Sour and Bramble (here with Chambord) that are just waiting for summer. (The 20-odd strong gin selection is rather exciting, with an assortment of major labels and small-batch producers; the Canadian distilling scene is represented, including Quebec’s Ungava and parsnip-tinged Piger Henricus, as well as B.C.’s Victoria Spirits).

On the menu, there were more dishes and generally more elaborate dishes than I had expected. The ingredients are not all bubble and squeak, but cast a much wider net among the territories. It’s always nice to meet a self-respecting salad in a dark boozy room like this, and the combination of arugula, endives, spinach, plump beets and hazelnuts with wafers of cheddar was something I could really dig into. An attractive appetizer of breaded pork with lentils, capers and chopped egg flatlined on flavour, the battered headcheese batons didn’t come across as worth the effort that the bartender described having gone into them.

A special of vindaloo ribs gave us some rounded spices to gnaw off the bones, but wanted a jab of acid for some zing; what did stand out was the use of dill among the fresh herbs.

Things got rolling with some impressive moments from the main courses. That was one great hanger steak hitting the table. Almost black and red, tender and a bit bloody, it was served with crisped potatoes, roasted chickpeas and tangy green watercress — a substantial plate that somehow came off as light. I’d be happy to receive cooking so spot-on in any restaurant, much less a casual neighbourhood pub.

Another repeat order would be the jerk Cornish hen, lacquered with hot, rounded spices that tingled nicely, and served with what they called breakfast sweet potatoes. A whole trout was also well handled — we were willing to keep getting in under the browned skin and bones to the soft pink flesh, and I liked the liveliness from a bitter hit of rapini, and a coarse salsa verde.

When it came time for dessert, something called milk jam with chocolate dirt sounded, after a couple of pints, like it could not be missed. We were happy with that jar of sweet, luscious milk cooked down so that it had turned into caramel — but mostly, we were just happy at that point.

A concept pub like Bishop & Bagg means you’re getting more thoughtfully planned, carefully sourced and cared-for food than the usual sports night chompers like chicken wings and fries that you can get anywhere. Here you can pair a pint with pork scratchings and tartar sauce, a ploughman’s lunch or lamb kebabs.

The rub is that it comes with a degree of financial commitment for folks who thought they were going out for a nice round of drinks and wound up spending as much as they would going out for a nice dinner. But maybe it’s your mate’s shout, as they say.

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